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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Haiti on January 30 to consult with members of civil society, political actors, Haiti’s president and international partners on the ongoing electoral situation as well as reconstruction efforts.

In addition to meetings with Haitian President Rene Preval, Secretary Clinton will also meet with leaders of civil society and electoral candidates, the Special Representative of the United Nations and visit a cholera treatment clinic.

The Secretary’s Office stated that: “The United States and Haiti share the mutual commitment to building Haiti anew after the devastating earthquake one year ago, and to ensure a strong future for Haiti’s people and its democracy.”

As the immigration battle is being fought all across the nation, one U.S. immigration official is sharing just how much it costs to have a single person deported.

Deputy Director Kumar Kibble of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently announced that to deport just one person, it costs the government $12,500.

In 2010, ICE deported just under 393,000 people. At a cost of $12,500 a person, that puts the cost at almost $5 million.

There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, so as politicians argue about the negative effects of undocumented immigrants and Americans worry about the country’s economy, one has to wonder, can we afford to spend billions or even trillions deporting people?

According to the Dominican Republic’s (DR) Central Bank there were 4,124,543 non-resident air arrivals for 2010. This represents 132,240 more non-resident arrivals than in 2009, for a 3.31% growth. This includes 105,494 tourists and 26,746 non-resident Dominicans. It is the first time that the four million-mark has been crossed. In 2009, non-resident air arrivals totaled 3,992,303. Overall, in 2010, the Central Bank statistics show 4,586,264 arrivals to airports nationwide, up 171,508 travelers, or 3.88%.

Travel in December was up 0.75%, despite the cancellation of several flights due to snowstorms.

The leading source markets for tourists to the DR continue to be the United States and Canada, with 54%. Overall, there was an increase of 83,022 tourists from North America.

South America is also strong market. There were 67,436 more arrivals from Argentina (26,052+), Brazil (17,583), Chile (11,234), and Central America and the Caribbean with 14,801 more visitors compared to 2009.

European flows are suffering the effects of greater austerity. There was a decline of 62,066, due to fewer travelers from Spain, Italy, France and the United Kingdom.

The Central Bank reports that most tourists came for leisure 91.48% and stayed in hotels in 87.45% of cases. The average age of visitors is between 21 and 49. Stats show 53.01% of tourists are women and 46.99% men.

On April 2 and 3, Lollapalooza will be rocking out the O’Higgins Park in Santiago de Chile. We have the (awesome) line up, as well as insider information on the perks that will be available at the festival!

First, the line up:

As always, artists keep signing up until the very last possible day, so there will be more surprises for the lucky Chileans.

Aside from the MASSIVE amounts of MUSICAL AWESOME that will surely be available through the O’Higgins Park, the festival has organized special tents and areas dedicated to making the Lollapalooza experience that much more unforgettable, and provide concertgoers with positive and engaging things to do between the acts of their choice.

These include:

Hammocks Zone
An area loaded with hammocks, where you can enjoy and relax.

Rock Star Video Karaoke
Users choose a song and use their favorite stars instruments and accessories to record a song. They’ll be able to take their recording home to share it with friends.

Kidz Paint Party
Famous artist Romero Britto, author of My Alphabet Playbook. will be interacting & creating art with kids in the beautiful world of color.

Break Dancing Workshops
There will be a dance floor set up in the shade for kids to learn break dancing with Avengerz Break Dancing Crew.

Hip Hop Workshop
An expert will teach kids how to scratch, beat box and rhyme.

DrumZone
An area all about rhythm and making music on a variety of drums. A special place for improvisation, creativity and freshness of rhythm.

Juggling Workshop
Where concertgoers discover the art of juggling manipulating one or more objects without dropping them.

“Off to Danao City” read Roy Castillo’s status update, and while we’re guessing a number of people didn’t see it or weren’t “friends” with “him,” those that did see this post on their Facebook homepage were wondering, “Who the f*** is Roy Castillo?

Wednesday, at about the same time Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg’s fan page was hacked, hundreds, if not thousands of people began seeing Roy Castillo’s status update in their news feed.

Though no one is sure the two incidents were related, it seems like a mighty big coincidence.

While some Facebook users began to panic when they realized they could not remove Castillo from their friends list, others found the new drifter hilarious.

A Facebook fan page entitled, “Roy Castillo WTF” was even created, and the online hisses and boos flooded the comment sections.

What should be mentioned is the fact that, while name is male, the photo associated with the profile is pretty obviously a female. There has been some speculation over whether the girl in the photo is Filipino (Danao City is in the Philippines) or Latino, since the girl’s face is partially covered by black “shutter shades,” but no matter his or her ethnicity, Roy has certainly left his/her mark on the Facebook community.

Now that the mysterious Roy has either been removed and/or left, inquisitive minds want to know, “Did Roy ever make it to Danao City?”

Spanish language network Univisión has established itself as the new player in the war for network ratings.

Within the next five years, its goal is to develop strategies based on producing original content, as well as nurturing among their employees a impending need to dethrone CBS, ABC and NBC from the top of the ratings pyramid.

“We expect to be the number one net in this country in five years,” Univisión Networks president Cesar Conde said in a Q&A session at a NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) conference in the city of Miami.

“What we have to do is instill that hunger to be number one in our staff and then we have to have flawless execution,” Conde added.

Both Conde and his counterpart at Telemundo Don Browne recognized and payed emphasis on the need for original content that is relevant, provocative for and reflective of their audiences.

“We have to push the envelope when it comes to programming,” Conde said.

As for the ad market, it keeps growing, and growing, and growing.

“In 2050 one of every three Americans will be Hispanic,” Browne, who was interviewed second, pointed out.

“The ad buying community is going to say ‘Wow.’ It’s a significant game-changer in our country. Perhaps the biggest in the history of our media,” Browne told attendees.

Browne, a former NBC executive has worked for the last four years on turning Telemundo from an acquirer to a producer of content.

“We now produce content and that has made all the difference. Passionate, talented people are now knocking on our door,” Browne said.

The state of the market today….

• Univision Network is one of America’s top networks, regardless of language.

• In major markets across the nation, Univision stations consistently outdelivers other stations, regardless of language.

• TeleFutura is one of the fastest growing networks in the U.S. and in fact it is the #2 Spanish-language network in key dayparts.

• Galavisión is the #1 Spanish-language cable network.

• Univision Radio is the #1 Spanish-language radio group.

• Univision Interactive Media is the leading Spanish-language digital group in the United States which includes Univision.com, the #1 U.S. Spanish-language online portal.

The 14,500 towns people of General Teran, in the state of Nuevo Leon, have seen its share of trouble since it is located in a drug-smuggling route to the U.S. but what happened over the last couple of weeks appear to be the worse.

In December masked gunmen attacked the local police head quarters with machine-gun fire and grenades, then two days ago two police officers were kidnapped by gunmen. Those two officers were found decapitated in town, a discovery made by their own colleagues – that’s when the entire 38-man police force and its police chief quit. Another officer had been kidnapped several weeks ago and remains missing.

The Mexican government has now deployed the federal police and the Army to serve the role of police officer to General Teran which is located southwest of Monterrey, Mexico.

President Felipe Calderon has introduced a piece of legislation that would eliminate local police forces and be replaced by a state police force that is better armed and trained.

Always in the middle of the immigration controversy, Arizona lawmakers are now taking issue with the 14th Amendment proposing a bill that confronts the issue of citizenship for the U.S.-born children of undocumented parents.

Thursday’s proposal was filed by Republican State Rep. John Kavanagh who said the goal is not to attempt to get every state to enact such a law, but to bring any lawsuits filed to stop it to the courts. By doing this, the Arizona lawmakers are hoping to reduce the cost associated with birthright citizenship.

Kavanagh stated that “the result of [birthright citizenship] is they immediately acquire the right to full benefits from welfare to cheese, which increases the costs to the states, and beyond that, it’s irresponsible and foolish to bestow citizenship based upon one’s GPS location at birth.”

Last week, Indiana’s state lawmakers filed a similar proposal, making Arizona’s the second of the year to go after the 14th Amendment.

While supporters say children born to undocumented parents are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of this country so hold no allegiance to the U.S., opponents say the proposal will not hold up court and will not make any kind of lasting impact on immigration issues, and add that the proposal is simply mean-spirited.

The first meeting of the Hispanic Council of Federal Employment will be held on February 11th at the Office of Personnel Management to discuss their goals for hiring, recruitment, retainment, and advancement with OPM Director John Berry.

The council is an advisory committee made up of representatives from Hispanic organizations and senior government officials.

The issue to be discussed is the lack of Hispanic hiring into federal agencies, despite the rise seen for other minorities over the last few years. Being cited is the much slower rate of hiring Hispanics between 2008 and 2009.

In 2009, just 8 percent of the permanent federal workforce was Hispanic, while in the private sector it was 13.9 percent. African-Americans, Asians, and Native Americans saw a much larger proportion in the federal workforces than in private sector.

“I think the issue ... is that we [Hispanics] have never really considered the federal government as a good place to work, traditionally … We don’t have the same tools that a private company would work with … Unfortunately, a lot of times because of those limitations, we haven’t been as good as others [in recruiting], particularly among Latinos,” said Latina and Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 Stimulus Funds Coordinator Gina Weber.

She added that the lack of Hispanics in the federal government’s higher-level jobs was concerning, because it points out that the Hispanic population does not have a legacy of government service like their fellow minorities. In 2009, only 4 percent of the total federal employees at senior pay levels were Hispanic.

Along with a 2009 report in Hispanics in the federal workforce, Director Barry sent President Obama a letter stating, ““Of greatest concern is that for the year ending June 30, 2009, the percentage of Hispanic new hires decreased from 9.2 percent to 7.3 percent. This is well below the Civilian [Private] Labor Force representation of 13.2 percent. OPM is leading an interagency task force on diversity that will develop recommendations for improving our efforts toward a federal government drawn from the diversity of our nation.”

Since 1994 the number of minority faculty in American business school has tripled but still falls short of representing the U.S. demographic.

American business schools are realizing that just having 3.5 percent of its faculty be minorities is not enough to create a PhD pipeline, recruit minority students, create diversity in corporate America or keep up with the current U.S. demographics.

If business schools factor in Asians as a minority their minority ranks look better though still do not reflect the minority make up of the U.S. For example at the University of Michigan’s business school, they have a 22 percent minority staff if you factor in all minorities and 3.7 percent with you remove Asian faculty.

America’s 1,600 business schools are taking note and creating minority faculty search committees and engaging advocacy organizations to help them locate more minority candidates especially African American, Hispanic American and Native American candidates.

With one more truck needed than what was originally budgeted, Former Brazil President, Luis Inacio Lula moved out the million and a half presents he received in the 8 years he served as president of the country.

The move even included a refrigerated truck, used to move the hundreds of wine and cachaza bottles that Lula was given through his time in office. The move had an estimated cost of over US$13,500, 22% more than what was estimated.

Items moved includes 335,000 letters that the former president received, 8,000 paintings and art pieces, 9,697 photographs and videos, 9,072 books, 590 baseball caps and some 8,500 other unique gifts, like the red gold sword given to him by the king of Saudi Arabia, the silver pair of tea cups given to him by Queen Elizabeth of England, a helmet belonging to the late Ayrton Senna and 85 different team jerseys.

Most of these items were moved from the Planalto palace, to the city of Sao Paulo, where the “Lula Institute” will soon be created.

Now that Republicans have control of the House, they’re jumping right into the battle for more aggressive immigration enforcement and are even calling on the president to being immigration raids at the workplace again.

Despite the fact that under the Obama administration, the number of people being deported has risen for the last two years, Republicans are calling for a return to George W.-era workplace raids. Though the president has pushed for citizenship being granted to worthy young adults caught up in the consequences of their parents’ actions, the right is now demanding more severe enforcement (raids) without a path to legal status. Since the end of Bush’s presidency, the number of arrests resulting from worksite raids for immigration-related offenses has dropped 70 percent.

Right now, Democrats hold the senate majority and the president has the power of veto, so House Republicans are unable to force a change in immigration policy, but with the 2012 elections right around the corner, the GOP is reportedly planning to hold hearings to fulminate against the current administration for allegedly allowing undocumented immigrants to take the jobs of Americans.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said that as the U.S. unemployment rate sits at around 9 percent, “it is hard to imagine a worse time to cut worksite enforcement efforts by more than half.” The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee added, “Citizens and legal immigrants should not be forced to compete with illegal workers for jobs.”

During his State of the Union Address, President Obama stated that the time for Democrats and Republicans to work together on immigration reform is now, and said he wants to work with all parties to “address the millions of undocumented workers who are now living in the shadows. I know that debate will be difficult. I know it will take time. But tonight, let’s agree to make that effort.”

Opponents of the workplace raids say they are far too expensive for taxpayers, as some of the larger raids cost upwards of $10 million each. Critics add that court dockets are often overflowing after such raids, and Kumar Kibble, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Deputy Director, told lawmakers Wednesday, that each deportation costs the federal government about $12,500, so it makes more sense to target the employers giving the jobs, rather than each individual

Under the Obama administration, the number of employer audits done by ICE has increased four-fold, resulting in an increase in investigations and arrests of people and companies knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants. In fiscal year 2010, businesses were fined $6.9 million, while in 2008 only $675,000.

Director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Daniel Griswold, said, “If we continue with just enforcement only, I think we will be here for years and years dealing with the same problem. It is simple supply and demand. We have demand for these workers and the supply of American workers to fill these jobs is shrinking.”

Google has released a series of 4 short videos titled “Google Hispanic Marketing Forum”.
Some interesting facts are :
-86% of Hispanics online have broadband
-78% of Hispanics us the Internet as a primary source of information
-64% of Hispanics visit video sharing websites ( 94% of those watching video visit YouTube)
-93% of US Hispanics use a mobile phone regularly (Hispanics are 32% more likely to have a Smartphone than the general population)
-93% of US Hispanics use Google as their primary search engine.

-100% of Informed US Hispanics get their News from Hispanically Speaking News- (OK, Just Kidding- but we are a recognized Google News Source!)

The series includes segments on General Mills’ Que Rica Vida and Kraft’s Comida y Familia initiatives.

“We’ve discovered that the digital world is the one that influences Latinos most at the time they make buying decisions and it’s something that advertisers should take more into account,” Mark Lopez, head of Google’s new U.S. Hispanic unit, told Efe on Thursday.

“It’s true that we Latinos have a broader family nucleus and group of friends and perhaps that’s why we make more use of the social alternatives offered by the Web,” Lopez said.

The newly formed Senate Tea Party Caucus, all four of them, gathered yesterday for its inaugural meeting greeted by about 100 activists supporters but missing three other senators that won as tea party candidates. The caucus is meant to highlight and promote the tea party ideal of fiscal conservatism, amongst other things.

The caucus, that appears to have more supporters than members, is made up of: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (the senior member).

Missing from the inaugural event was Wisconsin Sen. Ronald Johnson who fears joining would be divisive to the Republican party. Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, by far the highest profile absentee, was a no show clearly avoiding the association and choosing to work within the existing Republican party structure. The other Tea Party Senator that did not join was Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, though he did stop by to support the caucus event.

Rubio justified his slight because he did not want to ‘co-opt the mantle’ of a grass roots movement into a political one. In doing so he has frustrated and angered Tea party supporters that helped him get elected. Those very same members will be looking at Rubio and the other non-Caucus members to see how they vote on issues important to them like spending cuts, conservative values and anti-immigrant legislation.

A federal jury in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., has convicted Matthew Nestor and William Moyer of falsifying information related to the investigation into the beating death of Luis Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez died on July 12, 2008, as a result of injuries he suffered after being attacked by Derrick Donchak and Brandon Piekarsky, two high school students from Shenandoah, Pa., who were convicted of a federal hate crime in October 2010 and await sentencing.

Nestor, the former chief of police in Shenandoah, Pa., was convicted of filing a false report regarding the incident. Evidence presented at trial established that a report to the Schuylkill County District Attorney’s Office filed by Nestor, contained materially false information intended to mislead the investigation. Nestor will face up to 20 years in prison.

William Moyer, a former lieutenant in the Shenandoah Police Department, was convicted of making false statements to FBI agents in reference to his involvement in the investigation of the Ramirez homicide. The jury found that Moyer deliberately relayed false information about what a witness told him on the scene. Moyer will face up to five years in prison.

The jury acquitted former Shenandoah Police Officer Jason Hayes of all charges relating to allegations that he obstructed justice and falsified reports.

The U.S. and Chile are seeking to form a cooperative nuclear energy deal, which would allow the U.S. to share nuclear energy information with Chile and to train Chilean scientists in nuclear energy. In addition the government is hosting a forum regional forum to bring together nuclear experts all with the U.S. blessing.

Meanwhile, Chile continues its path to obtain nuclear energy. A French-Belgium company, GDF Suez has expressed interest to build a nuclear power plant in the northern part of the country.

Both measures have international environmental activists, Chilean naturalists and the Chilean public in general upset and displeased that the country keeps heading toward the nuclear power option.

Mexican authorities have announced the discovery of 219 illegal migrants in the southern state of Chiapas, all were discovered squeezed in one trailer truck.

Mexican authorities stopped the truck at a routine inspection point on Wednesday but it refused to stop and a police chase ensued, when the truck finally stopped, the driver and passenger attempted to bribe the officers.

The migrants were mostly from nearby Central America but there were six from Sri Lanka and four from Nepal. 33 of the passengers were female and nine minors were also found. All were deported on Thursday.

The Missouri Supreme Court reversed a lower courts decision this week, placing the custody of a 4-year-old boy into questions for more months to come. The 4-year-old boy was born to an undocumented Guatemalan woman and later adopted by an American couple without the birthmothers consent.

The state Supreme Court’s decision was that the Missouri courts did not have the right to terminate the parental rights of Encarnacion Bail Romero, who was imprisoned after a 2007 immigration sting at a poultry processing plant at the time.

The young boy was not ordered to be returned to his biological mother though as the case is being sent back to a lower court to be tried again.

The legal fight will proceed for who has the right to the custody of this young boy. The American family says they followed all the laws and did everything “by the book” when they adopted the two year old.

Encarnacion Bail Romero says she never gave up custody of her son while she was in jail for violating US immigration laws. Her son had been left in the custody of her brother and sister-in-law who eventually put their nephew up for adoption.

Although the courts latest action was a victory for the rights of the birthmother , there are clearly no winners in this case.

Lawmakers in Newark are proposing that they renovate an existing county jail so that it can hold more undocumented immigrants than it does now.

Federal officials have given provisional permission to the plans and have commented on the fact that the new center would provide a less harsh background for those who are only being detained due to the fact that they are not legal residents of the US but have committed no other crimes.

Detainees at the new center would have increased access to medical care, as well as greater federal influence. This is a major stride for the Obama administration who vowed in 2009 to improve conditions for those being detained for immigration charges, nothing else.

Prior to this plan, independent companies that were reimbursed by federal agencies ran detention centers. There were also allegations of unjust treatment of those being detained, with one report of a death in a Rhode Island center where a man was allegedly abused and denied medical care.

Spain’s Defense Minister, Carme Chacon, announced several new restrictions it has imposed on U.S. military flights that are operating on or near Spanish air space.

U.S. military aircraft can no long refuel on any Spanish territory, can only do instrument flights over Spanish airspace, can no longer store landmines and needs to submit environmental impact studies on any maneuver it might be conducting on U.S. bases in Spain.

The Spanish government is assuring everyone that they are not reacting to their displeasure with the U.S. when they transferred detainees via European military bases enroute to Guantanamo, where many still remain.

U.S. has two military bases in Spain: Moron Air Base and the Rota Naval Station.